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Naming your children

ChicdeaC

ChicdeaC

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Feel free to comment if you have an experience where your own name fits into one of these situations and you've had a positive or negative experience.

Did you consider how long their name would be?
Did you avoid common names?
Did you honor someone else when you chose the name (family name or friend's)?
If there are 2 accepted spellings of the name, how did you choose (we won't be using a "unique" spelling...I am thinking more of something like Steven vs. Stephen)?
Did you pick one name before you went to the hospital/adopted or did you wait until you met your child to choose amongst several alternatives?

Basically give me your advice about how to choose a name that our kid won't hate us for saddling him/her with...
 
My parents wanted to name me Amadeus. My uncle stopped them, thank god. Don't do that.
 
ChicdeaC said:
Feel free to comment if you have an experience where your own name fits into one of these situations and you've had a positive or negative experience.

Did you consider how long their name would be?
Did you avoid common names?
Did you honor someone else when you chose the name (family name or friend's)?
If there are 2 accepted spellings of the name, how did you choose (we won't be using a "unique" spelling...I am thinking more of something like Steven vs. Stephen)?
Did you pick one name before you went to the hospital/adopted or did you wait until you met your child to choose amongst several alternatives?

Basically give me your advice about how to choose a name that our kid won't hate us for saddling him/her with...
Click to expand...

Do not try a unique spelling. That is muy lamo. My F'ing parents spelled my name Stephan (name = Steven, but always pronounced Stefan).

As to my kids names, we named them unique family names that we found in family trees and used last/maiden names for middle names.
 
Did you consider how long their name would be? Yes, but if you have a girl, you lose control of that once she's married.
Did you avoid common names? No.
Did you honor someone else when you chose the name (family name or friend's)? My son has the same name as me and my dad. It's also a fairly common/famous Scottish name. We call him by a nickname derived frm his name however.
If there are 2 accepted spellings of the name, how did you choose (we won't be using a "unique" spelling...I am thinking more of something like Steven vs. Stephen)? We chose Allison with two "L's," but that's how it's spelled in our family.
Did you pick one name before you went to the hospital/adopted or did you wait until you met your child to choose amongst several alternatives? Had it chosen and stuck with it.
Basically give me your advice about how to choose a name that our kid won't hate us for saddling him/her with...
My last name has hard consonants, so we tried to find something that would flow well with that.
 
we went with fairly traditional names that honored one of my grandmothers and one of my wife's. sarah can be spelled with and without the 'h', but we just liked the way the h looked (although my grandmother spelled her's without it). picked the name out long before she was born.

you can go to www.wolframalpha.com and type in the name and it will give you some basic information about it (rank, age distribution, historical averages).
 
ChicdeaC said:
Feel free to comment if you have an experience where your own name fits into one of these situations and you've had a positive or negative experience.

Did you consider how long their name would be? No
Did you avoid common names? Yes, although my middle daughter's first name is common, she has a double name
Did you honor someone else when you chose the name (family name or friend's)?Yes, all 3 kids have a family name in there somewhere
If there are 2 accepted spellings of the name, how did you choose (we won't be using a "unique" spelling...I am thinking more of something like Steven vs. Stephen)?My youngest has a unique spelling, we kinda like it
Did you pick one name before you went to the hospital/adopted or did you wait until you met your child to choose amongst several alternatives?We had the names picked out before arrival. It took my brother-in-law 3 days to figure out a name for his first kid. Thought that was dumb.

Basically give me your advice about how to choose a name that our kid won't hate us for saddling him/her with...
Click to expand...

We thought a family name was a good way to go, but we also gave our kids names that were unique and that we liked so they wouldn't be the 5th Katie or Jacob in their class.
 
HeavyPetter said:
Did you consider how long their name would be? Yes, but if you have a girl, you lose control of that once she's married.
Click to expand...
Yeah my name got 1 letter longer (and is pretty long), but I don't feel like it's a big deal but with our last name -10 letters- I just am wary of choosing longer 1st and middle names (my middle name is very short)- though we would likely use shorter nicknames
 
I have a fairly uncommon name and, while sometimes people mess it up, I generally really like it. Rarely have problems with other people having the same name in class. Sometimes its a good conversation starter. I think the good balance is between a not very common name BUT one that doesn't have crazy spellings.
 
I am OSD III, so we named our son OSDBoy IV. My Dad is the greatest man that I know, so it was an easy choice when we knew that he was going to be a boy. If it had been a girl, we had considered a middle name after my sister, but IIRC, we changed our minds about it. I think that our first choice of a name for a girl was Genevieve, but we never had to worry about that. I think that it is nice to honor people in this way as long as you stick to something fairly normal, but not using someone's last name as a child's first name.
 
Did you consider how long their name would be?
cared about syllables in first name, ok to be longer as long as there was a standard short version we are cool with
Did you avoid common names?
yes
Did you honor someone else when you chose the name (family name or friend's)?
no
If there are 2 accepted spellings of the name, how did you choose
we agreed on the one we liked
Did you pick one name before you went to the hospital/adopted or did you wait until you met your child to choose amongst several alternatives?
had it ready beforehand
Basically give me your advice about how to choose a name that our kid won't hate us for saddling him/her with...
this eventuality is always a possibility
 
ChicdeaC said:
Feel free to comment if you have an experience where your own name fits into one of these situations and you've had a positive or negative experience.

Did you consider how long their name would be? No
Did you avoid common names? My name was pretty uncommon growing up, so it constantly got mispronounced (plus there was a C-list celeb with the same name who intentionally mis-pronounced it, which made it worse. It is a more common name now, so it is not that big of a deal, but I told my wife that our kid would definitely have a common name.
Did you honor someone else when you chose the name (family name or friend's)? My son and my name derive from the same Gaelic root, so we kind of have the same name but not as douchebaggy as a "Junior".
If there are 2 accepted spellings of the name, how did you choose (we won't be using a "unique" spelling...I am thinking more of something like Steven vs. Stephen)? For the reasons stated above, go with one that is easily recognized.
Did you pick one name before you went to the hospital/adopted or did you wait until you met your child to choose amongst several alternatives? He was around for a day or two before we settled on a name.

Basically give me your advice about how to choose a name that our kid won't hate us for saddling him/her with...
Click to expand...

ETA: not that I think all Juniors are douchebags, just that I would feel like a douchebag myself if I named my kid after myself.
 
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I'm a "Jr." and definitely do not like it. Nothing against my dad, who I love and respect more than any man on earth, but sharing the same name is frankly annoying. From phone calls, to mail, to documentation issues, I can think of countless times where there has been confusion between the two of us and countless hours that it has consequently wasted.
 
The wife and I are in the process now of deciding on a name for Say Hey Deac Jr. We have our first name picked out and did so unbelievably easily. Most of our discussions were trying to find names that sounded good with our last name. The name we chose is not especially unique, but it's not remarkably common, nor is it one of those awful trendy names. Haven't picked a middle name yet, but it will probably be something with some familial ties.
 
I was named after my grandfathers (first name = father's side, middle name = mother's side). Can't go wrong there.

Edit: In terms of length, my family is almost exclusively monosyllabic, which is odd. Some of them are shortened, but by common name, myself, my brother, mother, father, all four gparents, both uncles (both aunts are married in), and 4/5 cousins all are monosyllabic. Odd.
 
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We gave our daughter a (1) normal name (2) that we both liked, and (3) has a cute nickname. As she grows older, she can either keep the nickname or go with her full first name. No weird spellings.

I have a large extended family, so we did our best to avoid any names that were used by relatives on either side. Her middle name had been used in my family, but it was several generations ago. Only 1 living relative with the name at the time, but she was well on her way to the front desk to pay her bill & check out.

Before we knew the baby was a girl, my wife couldn't figure out why I was adamantly opposed to naming a boy after both of our fathers. I let her struggle with it for a while before I told her to think about what a boy named after his grandfathers Jack and Richard would be called by other kids.
 
I have twin boys. We chose to name them after their grandfathers' first names (both are traditional and we do not shorten them with nicknames). We went with middle names that had non-family related significance for my wife and me (Bryant after Bear Bryant for my wife the Alabama alum and Winston after the dash and the 13 years of my life I spent there.)

I regard names like tattoos. These days, its more unique to use a traditional name (not have a tattoo) then it is to have a trendy name (have a tattoo).

We have another boy on the way, and cannot reach a consensus on a name. I feel like we should continue the trend and use our fathers' middle names as the baby's first and middle name.
 
I have two family names both of which are very obscure. Some days I like it some days i don't but i always get shit for it
 
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